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Call No.: 75-166--75-400
Repository: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute
Creator: LURA ELLA BEAM
Title: Papers, 1900-1969
Quantity: 2 cartons, 1 oversize folder, 1 oversize scrapbook
Abstract: Writings, correspondence, photographs, etc., of Lura Ella Beam, educator and writer.

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BIOGRAPHY

Lura Beam spent her life studying and writing about what she described as "the poor in life; minorities, some women, some Causes like education and the arts." Born in Marshfield, Maine, in 1887, she attended the University of California, Berkeley (1904-1906), and graduated from Barnard in 1908. In 1917, she earned an M.A. from Columbia. She worked at the American Missionary Association (AMA), 1908-1919, beginning here the work that she would pursue, in one form or another, for the rest of her life. For three years she worked for the AMA as a teacher at two black schools: the Gregory Normal Institute in Wilmington, North Carolina, and then the LeMoyne Normal School in Memphis, Tennessee. She then became AMA's Assistant Superintendent of Education in charge of the Deep South, visiting schools and colleges throught the South to determine their most successful teachers and programs. Her reports were sent to all AMA schools so that they could improve the quality of education they offered.

From 1919 to 1926 Beam researched and wrote reports for the Association of American Colleges. The research and travel for "Art in the Liberal College," an extensive study of art curricula in seven representative colleges, provided a basis for her later work for the American Association of University Women (AAUW), 1937-1952, where Beam organized and mounted art exhibitions and surveys of community art projects. First, however, Beam worked for the National Committee on Maternal Health (1927-1933), the General Education Board in New York City, and a Federal research project in industrial unemployment.

Since retiring in 1952, Beam has continued to write and to organize art exhibitions; since 1968, she has been compiling information and writing a study on aging and retirement.

SCOPE AND CONTENT

The arrangement follows the chronological order of LEB's career, as outlined in her autobiographical sketch.

CATALOG ENTRIES

CONTAINER LIST

• Carton 1: Folders 1-21
• Carton 2: Folders 22-47

PRELIMINARY INVENTORY

• 1-5v: Early life and personal papers
  • 1. Autobiographical sketch, c. 1975.
  • 2. "Background"
  • 3. School and College.
  • 4o. Diplomas, Barnard, AB '08, AM '17
  • 5v. Diary, 1925-1969.

• 6. American Missionary Association, 1912, 1918

• 7. Association of American Colleges, 1919-1924

• 8. Association of American Colleges, 1924

• 9. LEB's "Marriage and Sex Adjustment. I. Fertility", p.1-301. Material for Seminar on Human Relations, n.d.

• 10. LEB's "Marriage and Sex Adjustment. II. Conflict", p.302-504

• 11. LEB's "Marriage and Sex Adjustment. III. Fertility", p. 505-545.

• 12. LEB's "Marriage and Sex Adjustment. IV. Education", p.546-810.

• 13. LEB's "Clothes are not vertical", article, 1930.

• 14. National Committee on Maternal Health, includes reviews of Robert Latou Dickinson and LEB's A Thousand Marriages (1931) and other reviews and articles by LEB on the subject of gynecology and birth control, 1929-1934.

• 15-27: American Association of University Women, art division: exhibitions, reviews, study courses, correspondence with artists.
  • 15. Wichita Falls, Texas, Development of the Arts, n.d.
  • 16. Study courses, n.d.
  • 17. Exhibitions of Children's Art, 1939-1952.
  • 18. Marina Nunez del Prado of Bolivia, 1942-1959.
  • 19. John Rood, circulating exhibition, 1945-1946.
  • 20. David Smith, 1946-1957
  • 21. Circulating exhibitions, n.d.
  • 22. Circulating exhibitions, 1939-1951.
  • 23. Contemporary American Drawing, exhibition, 1948-1952; includes correspondence with artists: Irene Rice Pereira, Lyonel Feininger, Charles Sheeler
  • 24. Exhibitions, disposal of,1952
  • 25. Budget, 1949-1952.
  • 26. General Director's letters, 1938-1950.
  • 27. Branch reports, handbooks, catalogues and flyers,1940-1948

• 28-32: Journal of the AAUW, 1928-1952: articles by LEB, references to AAUW art division, reviews of exhibits and reports.
  • 28. 1928-1942
  • 29. 1944-1947
  • 30. 1948-1950
  • 31. 1951-1952
  • 32. Articles by LEB, ts., 1939

• 33-42: Retirement:
  • 33. American Prints for USIA, 1956-1957
  • 34. Watercolors, Prints and Drawings for USIA, 1956
  • 35. Japanese Prints, 1955-1959
  • 36. Japanese Prints, Exhibits, 1957-1959
  • 37. LEB's A Maine Hamlet (1957), worksheets for
  • 38vo. Scrapbook of reviews and correspondence re A Maine Hamlet (1957)
  • 39. Articles re Maine, 1936, 1958, 1959
  • 40. Schaffner, Alice Boughton, will and estate administration, 1958-1960
  • 41. Wagner College Writers' Conference, 1960
  • 42. LEB's He Called Them by the Lightning (1967), correspondence, reviews, 1967-1969.

• 43-47: Photographs:
  • 43. LEB: 2 portraits
  • 44. View of Marshfield, ME
  • 45. AAUW exhibition of Marina Nunez del Prado, 1942-1949.
  • 46. AAUW exhibition of Contemporary American Drawing, 1951-1952
  • 47. Japanese Prints and Brocades, exhibition, 1957-1959